Rakuten Play.com drops 32ft shopping bags in Edinburgh as it generates some Christmas buzz with shoppers and retailers alike
Rakuten Play.com, the online marketplace, is preparing to erect a 32ft high shopping bag in Edinburgh, the first piece of activity as part of a major marketing push for 2014.
Working with creative agency Hometown London, the new campaign is not only looking to position Rakuten Play.com – which in March this year dropped its direct retail business to operate as simply marketplace for third party sellers – as a rival to the likes of Amazon in the online space, but also as a supporter of the high-street.
“We started working with Rakuten about seven months ago and have been in a strategic phase,” said Simon Labbett, creative director of Hometown London.
“We got briefed about two months ago to start doing some activity for them, just word of mouth, how could we create buzz in one city. What would we do that would generate some fun, some interest, and announce the arrival of Rakuten in the UK.”
He continued: “We were briefed with Edinburgh in mind already and just wanted to do something iconic for shoppers that basically anchored Rakuten in their heads as an exciting place to shop.”
Inspired by Stuart Murdoch’s giant deck chair which appeared on Brighton Beach one morning in March last year Labbett and his team decided to take one of the most iconic objects in retail and supersize it.
“There’s something quite appealing about taking small object and making them enormous,” he laughs, but adds, on a more serious note, that the bag really exemplifies Rakuten’s new position and builds awareness of Rakuten’s marketplace offering ahead of Christmas.
He described the bag to The Drum as "a shopping experience" created with the aim of bridging the real world and digital shopping environments in order to capture he attention of shoppers to the Rakuten marketplace, which altered its strategy earlier this year to promote the goods of other retailers online.
“It really is about embracing the high street and not about taking themselves away from it. It is about trying to get every single shop in the UK onto the marketplace where they can help them grow. Which is why we put a shopping bag in these places. It’s something that gets a bit of excitement around the high-street and it feels like you have a right to be there instead of sticking something there that says ‘hey, shop online’.”
Edinburgh was chosen as the location for the giant bag, following research conducted by Rakutan which revealed that Scottish shoppers were the most generous in the UK at Christmas time.
To really engage with consumers, the bag located Bristo Square will be surrounded by iPads where people play interactive games and can win up to £1000 a day in Rakuten Superpoints. There will also be smaller bags in Waverley Station, St James and Fountain Park but will not have the same offer.
However, should the six-day run prove successful in Scotland’s capital then it may well roll out across other UK cities over the next two months.
“I think how it rolls out and how it’s received will decide if we should take it nationally,” revealed Labbett. “So there is various tactical risks going on but we’ll look at it after this and see what the next best step is.”
In the next issue of The Drum, 8 November, we talk more about Rakuten's new brand positioning and business model with managing director Shingo Murakami. You can buy a copy from The Drum store.